The Mexican Red Alert is one of many Autobot cars released in Mexico with marked variations compared to its release in the US, Japan and other countries. Despite the fact that the variations may not be visible if you were looking solely at the Mexican Red Alert, when placed next to a US Red Alert, the differences become clear. But first of all, a look at the packaging starting with the pic above.

The box front has the usual IGA logo in the bottom left hand corner instead of a Hasbro logo and a majority of the text on the box is in Spanish. By the time the second series of toys were being released in Mexico, the quality and colour of the boxes were getting a tiny bit closer to US quality. It’s still quite impressive to look at due to the nice colour scheme of Red Alert itself.

Seeing as how this is a second series Mexican Transformers release, Red Alert does actually have a techspec graph and there is a red decoder strip included in the package. However, there still wasn’t a Mexican mail-away promotion, so no robot points and no text about clipping or saving them. Those sections of the box were blocked out by IGA. The box copyright on the back below the techspecs says “© 1985 Hasbro Inc” which actually means the toy saw release in 1986, as it was only in 1986 that TFs said “Hasbro Inc.” on the box copyrights. Previously it would have been “Hasbro Bradley Inc.” or “Hasbro Industries”. Mexico usually got the toys a year after the US, if at all.

Lower quality plastics and materials have been used in the construction of the insert. The plastic bubble just felt much more flimsy than any US bubble I had seen. Mexican MISB specimens have been known to simply fall off their backing cards where the glue has given up! Now a look at the toy itself.

Mexican or not, Red Alert still looks great in vehicle mode. You can’t go wrong with a mould as good as this. It looks as though the rear diecast section has yellowed, but that is actually the standard creamy off-white paint that IGA used on most Mexican Transformers. It’s evident on Prowl, Ramjet and most other TFs that had white sections. Some of the plastic is bone white in contrast on this Red Alert. The red paint on the hood is not applied particularly well as it’s not all that neat around the edges.

One of the first things I noticed when I transformed Red Alert into robot mode was that his face was a duller grey than the US release. Also, the feet do not click into place when they are swung out, unlike other releases of the mould. The headlight stickers and red plastic are also not identical to the US release but later scans should highlight those differences in more detail. He still looks good and is highly displayable in either mode though, as well as in the package (assuming he hasn’t fallen off the bubble!). Just a closer look at his weapons/accessories:

The rest of this article will concentrate on comparing the Mexican Red Alert with a US Red Alert.

In the first comparison picture, the Mexican Red Alert is on the right, and you might be able to make out the cream colour of the rear and roof sections compared to the white of the US release. Also, look at the very bottom of the hood where the bumper begins. The US hood goes straight to the bumper but the Mex one appears to have a tiny little ridge/ledge between the end of the hood slope and the start of the bumper.

You can see the slightly shabby paint job on the red section on the hood. Surprisingly though, looking at the second scan, the red line that goes along the bottom of red alert is actually painted better under the hood section on the Mex one than the US one. There is less excess paint on the Mex one underneath.

The second comparison scan above throws up the main variations between the two toys. The Mexican Red Alert is on the LEFT now. Notice how much lighter the red plastic is on the Mexican Red? The main variation however is evident on the doors. The red stripe on the US Red Alert runs all the way along the bottom of the door, but the Mexican’s red stripe is not painted on at all! The only red on the doors is from the door sticker. Other than that, there is no red on the Mexican toy’s door. That’s why it looks like the red stripe runs higher and longer on the US toy’s door. The font used for “Fire Chief” is also slightly different, the letters are a little fatter on the US Red Alert. The extra shiny-ness of the US toy’s face paint might also be evident to you from the above scan.

Here is one last figure comparison pic which might better highlight for you the differences outlined above. The US Red Alert is on the left, the Mex is on the right.

The Mexican Red Alert has a long-handled gun which is made of a lighter colored red plastic (as are the missiles) much like the legs and innards. Here's a scan which doesn't show the difference as well as I'd hoped. Mex weapons on the left:

Also, the bad moulding at the end of the Mex gun can be seen in that scan, even if the colour difference can't. The stickersheet, as with all Mex TFs, is just a US stickersheet. There is no rubsign on Mex Red obviously, but the missiles fire! The instructions are second series so it says "Instrucciones" as opposed to "Instructivo", and like all Mex instruction booklets they are matte not gloss. The copyright on Red Alert is NOT blocked (just as it isn’t on Mexican Sideswipe) so you’d have to rely on the above variations to tell a Mex specimen apart from its foreign cousins.

As usual, there are some quality issues but this is actually a very nice looking toy, and I found it to be more displayable than most Mexican Transformers. It might have been because the toy was practically unused, but I think it owes more to the design, mould and colour of Red Alert himself. This is one of the harder Mexican toys to find, but it’s not all that desirable because the variations are not huge, and before I owned it nobody even realised that there were any major variations, the biggest one being the unpainted door. You can’t go wrong with the Sideswipe mould, but even so this is probably one for the completists.

All the best
Maz